For those quick to doubt the recently unveiled Carbon3D printer and its promise of 100 x faster 3D printing, Autodesk may have just gone and given it the seal of approval you were waiting for.

The company today announced it is investing $10 million in Carbon3D from the Spark Investment Fund to further the development of Carbon3D’s innovative Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP).

In late 2014, Autodesk launched the Spark Investment Fund with the aim of investing up to $100 million in entrepreneurs, innovators and startups who push the boundaries of 3D printing. The Spark Investment Fund is the first venture fund exclusively dedicated to driving the overall growth of the 3D printing ecosystem.

“We started the Spark Investment Fund to help drive the 3D printing industry forward,” said Carl Bass, Autodesk president and CEO. “Carbon3D embodies the innovation that’s required to change how products are made. The incredible speed of its CLIP technology makes 3D printing accessible for true manufacturing, beyond the prototyping and the one-offs we see it being used for now."

Carbon 3D’s CLIP technology addresses the current speed, mechanical properties and material choice limitations of the 3D printing industry with a tunable photochemical process instead of the traditional mechanical approach. By carefully balancing the interaction of UV light, which triggers photo polymerization, and oxygen, which inhibits the reaction, CLIP continuously grows molecularly solid objects from a pool of resin at speeds of up to 100 times faster than conventional 3D printing technology.

Dr. Joseph DeSimone, CEO and co-founder, Carbon3D, added: “By working at the intersection of hardware, software and molecular science, we are aiming to fundamentally address the issues that have held 3D printing back from becoming a manufacturing process. We’re honored to have an industry powerhouse like Autodesk recognize the transformative nature of our CLIP technology and engage with us in such a significant way.”